Longtime Rouse home is up for sale

James and Patricia Rouse moved into waterfront Wilde Lake home in 1974

November 04, 2012|By Steve Kilar, The Baltimore Sun

Gamper said her mother refused to move out of the home she had shared with her husband unless she was assured it wouldn't be sold during her lifetime.

From her eighth-floor Vantage House residence, "she could look out her slider doors and see her house," said Jane Gooden, who has been the Rouses' housekeeper since 1979. Even during Patricia Rouse's years at Vantage, Gooden attended to the house twice a week, she said.

"Patty was opposed to replacing anything unless it was absolutely necessary," Gooden said. "She was always saying, 'Why do I want to fill up the landfill with stuff?' " recalled Gooden.

Her distaste for waste and her dedication to Enterprise — Patricia Rouse went into the nonprofit's Columbia office daily until she was no longer able, Gamper said — are why the house has not been renovated. Decades-old wallpaper still decorates several lower-level rooms and other finishes throughout could be replaced, Gary said.

But with some renovations, Gary thinks the property has the potential to be worth over $1 million.

Gamper, who stayed in one of the downstairs bedrooms during several summers as a young adult, is glad the home will be lived in again after several years without a regular tenant.

The sole thing she hopes the new owners will maintain about the house: the bright yellow double doors at the end of the red brick walkway leading up to the house. Some members of the neighborhood association were not pleased with James' unorthodox color choice, Gamper recalled.